You can snag a Lumia 900 preorder in the US for $25 down

Do you live in the United States? Near a Microsoft store? Do you want a Nokia Lumia 900 as quickly as possible? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, you are in luck: Microsoft is accepting pre-orders. Sadly, if you don’t live near one of the Microsoft Store, you are out of luck, at least for now. For the lucky few, a $25 downpayment will reserve you a unit.

When might your handset become available? The latest and last rumor on that matter has pegged the release date for the phone as March 18th. The final device should run you $99 with a contract, so you are essentially paying for 1/4th of your device by reserving it. Microsoft is heavily limiting the number of pre-orders that Nokia can rack up, by forcing people to visit one of its stores, but that might be part of its strategy; such venues live and die by their foot traffc, and so sending people to them cannot hurt.

TNW has a favorable view of the Lumia 900, both from its specs, and from our hands-on time with it at CES. The larger Lumia line of phones, including the 710, 800, and 900 have been generally well received. Nokia has sold some 1 million of the phones thus far.

The Lumia 900 is the Finnish company’s great push for the United States, a critical mobile market. We have speculated that its low price point will make it an influential player at AT&T, to the detriment of other Windows Phone handsets, such as the HTC Titan II.